著者

丸井 博

出版者

一般社団法人 人文地理学会

雑誌

人文地理 (ISSN:00187216)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.25, no.2, pp.240-253, 1973

---

The writer has studied the development and the present conditions of the small hydroelectric plants along the Shiba River flowing south at the foot of Mt. Fuji. The results of this study are as follows.<br>1) There are 21 small hydroelectric plants along the Shiba River (Fig. 4), but their facilities are old and supply only a part of demand of electricity for the electric light and industrial power in this region. However, their cost of electricity production is low because the repayment of facilities has already ended. In addition, they are maintained as the urgent electricity in case of troubles of the long-distance transmission lines to this region from the hydroelectric or thermalelectric plants in other regions.<br>2) The first hydroelectric plant along the Shiba River was the Inogashira Hydroelectric Plant built in 1910. The completion of this plant was the one step to the modern hydroelectricity production in the Shizuoka Prefecture. The reason why the hydroelectric plant was built first along the Shiba River in the Shizuoka Prefecture was that there were a lot of sites for hydroelectricity production and the developing paper and pulp industry at the southern foot of Mt. Fuji demanded much electricity.<br>3) Four electric companies competed sharply for the production and supply of hydroelectricity along the Shiba River and the Fujisuiden Company held a dominant position. But, after all most hydroectric plants belonged to the Tokyo Electric Power Company which supplied electricity to Tokyo and amalagmated the Fujisuiden Company.<br>4) All the hydroelectric plants along the Shiba River whose capacities are from 250 KW to 4, 000 KW are conduit type. About 70 per cent of the 590-meter water head from the highest plant to the lowest one is used for genera-tion (Fig. 5).<br>5) The area of the Shiba River was early reclaimed as the agricultural land and at present the water rights for both irrigation and electric generation are much complicated (Fig. 8). The hydroelectric plants obtained the water rights for electric generation by paying various compensations, but the electricity production by a lot of plants decreased to a degree during the period of irrigation to the paddy fields from May to July, because irrigation rights take precedence. This kind of reduction of electricity production is far larger than the seasonal reduction (Fig. 6).